Dan Burger
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BOSaNOVA Secure Version 8 Gets Windows 7 Compatibility
May 18, 2010 Dan Burger
… Read moreWhen 10ZiG obtained the rights to BOSaNOVA Secure and three other products sold under the BOSaNOVA name, it had an obligation to service existing customers, keep investing in the products, and stay current with the latest versions of the IBM i operating system. BOSaNOVA Secure version 8 is the follow through of that promise.
BOSaNOVA, and its worldwide customer base that relies on its iSeries connectivity products, thin clients and network appliances, was acquired by 10ZiG in late 2009. Since then, BOSaNOVA customers have relied on 10ZiG for product distribution and support as well as research and development of future
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YiPs Find Skills and Jobs on Different Roads
May 17, 2010 Dan Burger
… Read moreThe Young i Professionals (YiPs) want your job. They’ll do the IT equivalent of cleaning out the stables, digging a ditch, or sweeping the shop. They’ll work part time, full time, Sundays, and holidays. Put them on the graveyard shift, if you have one. All they want is a chance to prove their worth. At the COMMON Annual Meeting and Exposition earlier this month, the YiPs told me they have plans to link people and jobs.
“We hope to create a matching process,” says Justin Porter, one of the YiPs with a desire to become more involved in the IBM
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.NET App Modernization Tool Unveiled by looksoftware
May 11, 2010 Dan Burger
… Read moreBefore starting an IBM i application modernization planning process, it’s good advice to examine your application portfolio and understand where you want to make investments. Existing applications may not fit new business requirements or high maintenance may be strangling app dev progress. Either one makes you question their value. Some circumstances move companies in the direction of Microsoft .NET development, and if this occurs to you, then looksoftware should get your attention.
Ask yourself: When business goals and IT infrastructure are horribly misaligned, who gets the black eye? Without a doubt, it’s the IT department, and chances are good that
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Open Access for RPG Grabs Attention at COMMON
May 10, 2010 Dan Burger
… Read moreRPG is king. If you don’t believe it, go to COMMON. OK, it is the big fish in the small pond scenario if you’re looking at the entire IT universe, but these are IBM i enthusiasts and for the majority of them RPG rules. If you are curious about the reaction to the tool IBM calls the Rational Open Access RPG Edition and that everyone else calls RPG Open Access, you wouldn’t be the Lone Ranger.
Educational sessions presented by IBMers and sessions presented by ISVs such as Profound Logic and looksoftware were filled with interested programmers. In some
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United States, Japan, and EMEA Combine iManifest Efforts
May 10, 2010 Dan Burger
… Read moreYou have to look at iManifest as a never-ending struggle. Whether you think that it is IBM‘s battle to fight or not, the continued progress of the IBM i, System i, iSeries, AS/400, or whatever you like to call it depends on those who truly believe it is something special and should be more than IBM’s best kept secret.
It’s hard to argue with the strategy that employs strength in numbers, especially when building a groundswell of support. So while the iManifest U.S. organization looks to build its ranks from the Atlantic to the Pacific, it most assuredly gets
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IBM and COMMON Call the Cops
May 10, 2010 Dan Burger
… Read moreAs far as I know, this is the first time in the 50-year history of COMMON that the organization, with IBM backing them up all the way, had to call the cops. The funny thing was that during the COMMON Annual Conference and Expo in Orlando, Florida, it was the West Haven, Connecticut Police Department that got the call.
No guns were drawn. No sirens screamed. But when it was all over, there were congratulations for what the WHPD has accomplished using technology to help preserve the peace and add officer safety. Behind the thin blue line in this case
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Global Perspective Requires CIO to Think in Transitional Terms
May 3, 2010 Dan Burger
… Read moreWarren Fristensky figures he’s built about a dozen data centers in his 30-year career. He doesn’t see that ever happening again. “I would not build a data center today,” he says. “I would go to someone to provision it and get into a managed services environment that would evolve into a cloud environment over time.” After three decades in IT, Fristensky has done a fair amount of evolving himself. He’s currently CIO at John Wiley & Sons, a global publishing company that has a long and happy relationship with the IBM i.
Wiley is a collection of niche publishing operations.
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RPG Open Access Is No Panacea, Say BCD and LANSA
April 26, 2010 Dan Burger
… Read moreFor every up, there’s a down. For every left, there’s a right. Two people watch the same movie and one says it was everything I hoped it would be and more while the other says it’s a poorly done remake of a movie from 10 years earlier. The just-released IBM i 7.1 operating system, and in particular the feature known as Open Access, already has prompted opinions about what it is and what it can do.
Not everyone thinks it’s the greatest thing since Timex determined its watches could take a licking and keep on ticking.
Surprised? You shouldn’t be.
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Analysts Top Off IT Spending Tank, Pump Up Earlier Expectations
April 19, 2010 Dan Burger
… Read moreHere we grow again. IT spending in 2010 was already projected to increase according to the analytical minds at research organizations Gartner and Forrester, but these post-doldrum days are calling for a little revision work–all for the better.
Over in the Gartner stable, they’re pitching a growth spurt of 5.3 percent, which would take IT spending to $3.9 trillion. It’s nice to see the economic wheels gaining some traction after slipping, sliding, and spinning for a painfully long two-plus years. At the start of 2010, the IT spending machine was predicted to churn out a 4.6 increase, which was
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COMMON Fall Conference Takes Shape as Annual Meeting Draws Near
April 19, 2010 Dan Burger
… Read moreJust like any business would do, COMMON communicates with its members (same as a business does with customers) to discover what it can do to be more responsive to their needs. The annual conference, for which COMMON is best known, bundles the largest and most diverse educational and networking opportunities pertaining to the IBM Power Systems platform into a single conference package, but timing, location, and cost make the annual event unfeasible for some folks to attend. Therefore, the COMMON board has to deliver attractive options for those who find the main event an uncomfortable fit.
That’s not to say